


Would You Like Me To Mend That For You?

by Astrodynamicist



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Awkward Flirting, F/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Pre-Relationship, Sewing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 16:26:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1694861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astrodynamicist/pseuds/Astrodynamicist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Kanaya pale-flirts with Dirk by offering to mend his clothes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Would You Like Me To Mend That For You?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for HSWC 2014 Bonus Round 1. Prompt from sxiz:
> 
> "Dirk♦Kanaya
> 
> Remember when Kanaya took to patching up Dirk's clothes after his strifes with Dave as a very advanced pale flirtation technique?"
> 
> UPDATE: Thanks to ReAllyssa for pointing out that I accidentally a word, and to janeypeixes for pointing out another error. Both have been fixed.

On the HMS Cantown, if you want company, you simply follow the sound of explosions.

And so Kanaya does, padding softly across the ship’s enormous central bay, today configured with Earth-style grass, buttery sunlight, and a perfect blue sky marred only by the occasional column of smoke. Another boom rocks the space, making her stumble.

When she finally arrives at the sound’s source, she finds it is a rocky arena set deep into the ground where Dave, Rose, and Jane fight a giant robo-troll. Jane keeps one of its metal arms occupied, her culling fork locked with its, while Dave flashsteps to stab it from behind. Dirk sits at the lip of the arena, watching intently. Kanaya follows the edge around to him.

“You aren’t strifing?”

He shakes his head nearly imperceptibly. “Collecting data.” Behind his pointed sunglasses, it’s nearly impossible to tell what he’s thinking. But she gets the sense that his sharp gaze is trained on Dave in particular.

“Ah.”

Kanaya had, in the time since the Game ended, gotten to know most of the human players rather well. Except for Dirk. He tended to hold himself apart, even when he did interact with the others. She often found herself wondering why.

A glance back down at the fray, and she sees that now Rose has her needles in the thing’s visual sensors. Kanaya turns her attention back to Dirk. She notices that his t-shirt has a long cut in it down one side. “What happened to your shirt?”

He lifts one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Dave and I strifed earlier. He got under my guard.”

“Would you like me to mend it for you?” She tries not to let the words tumble out too quickly.

“Nah. It’s just a t-shirt.”

“Of course.” She watches what’s left of the fight below, and tries not to feel too disappointed. The robot crashes to the ground. Jane stabs it a few more times for good measure, but it’s clearly down for the count. A soft rustling alerts Kanaya to Dirk getting up. She glances at him, but he’s already leaving. When she looks back into the arena, she sees Dave watch him go, expression equally inscrutable behind his own pair of shades.

\---

Days in the future, but not many, the main bay has been reconfigured again into a number of small rings, and everyone has paired off for strife practice. Kanaya and Rose practice their fistkind techniques (Karkat insisted on everyone trying to cross train) while one ring over Dave and Dirk spar with pairs of daggers. While wearing tuxedos, for some reason.

They dash in and out of each other’s range, matching speed and skill exactly. They stab and parry with a fluid grace broken only by the stutter-stop of their flashstepping. In-out-sidestep-slash-parry-slash-parry-stab-block-stepstab-block-feint-stab-block-stab- _slash_ -

“Shit!”

Dirk staggers back one step, looks down at his chest. His tuxedo jacket and shirt have been sliced open, and cherry-red blood begins to soak into the fabric.

“Whoa, dude, you-”

“It’s just a scratch.”

The Striders stare each other down, consciously smoothing away any body language that might betray their actual feelings. Kanaya sighs. It’s always so stupid with them, with the posturing.

“I mean, those are some pretty sweet threads, bro. Sad to see them wrecked, it’s like knocking down some great Vegas casino.”

“These? Nah. These are second-string duds at best. Just-in-case-of-lucky-hit attire.”

“Lucky? Who do you think you’re fighting, man, Serket? That was pure skill. I whipped you like-”

Kanaya sighs again, pushes her face hard into a hand. Reading human bodies is still very much a second language to her, but she has trained alongside these people long enough now to recognize lines of hidden pain in someone’s stance. And she knows enough of Dirk to know that he isn’t going to get that wound attended to in a reasonable timeframe.

Also his nice clothes are ruined. There was no need for that.

Suddenly she feels a hard shove against her lower back. “Ah!”

Kanaya catches herself. Behind her, Rose places her foot daintily back to the ground. “Water break is over. Unless you have something else you’d rather do than practice?”

“No. No, I…” She looks back at the Striders. Feferi has marched up to Dirk now, imperiously demanding to see his wound. Kanaya tries to feel relief that he’s being taken care of. Relief, not jealousy. 

The twinge of jealousy in her chest doesn’t go away.

“Feeling a little conciliatory?”

“What? No!” But when she looks back to Rose, Rose’s expression is more sympathetic than teasing.

“That is one mess it is simply not worth wading into.”

Kanaya looks back to the other ring. Feferi has evidently ordered Dirk to strip to the waist, and he evidently refused because now she is pulling his clothes off for him. By now, everyone has stopped practice to watch the commotion. From somewhere behind the crowd, Karkat yells something about “getting back to work you rot-panned idiots” and “we’ll never get into shape to fight the Condesce at this rate.”

Feferi dumps each article of clothing into the dust while Dirk squirms under her ministrations, and Kanaya twitches. “Give me a moment, please,” she says over her shoulder to Rose.

Kanaya marches forward and scoops the small pile of clothes off the ground. The undershirt is stained beyond reasonable repair, but the shirt is cleanable, and as it turns out, both it and the jacket require only very simple mending. She looks to Dirk. While she examined his clothing, Feferi took care of his wound, and now he stands, stance obstinate, arms crossed over his bare chest. “Can I have my clothes back, now?” He looks back to Feferi again. “Or do you need to run your hands over my chest once more first, for good measure?”

“Hmph!” Feferi juts her chin imperiously. “Don’t you talk to me in that tuna voice. If you wouldn’t behave like such a glubbing idiot every time you got hurt, I wouldn’t need to check you over so-”

“Excuse me.” Feferi and Dirk both turn their attention to Kanaya. Kanaya feels her face flush. “These need to be mended first. I’ll do it for you, if you don’t mind.”

Feferi looks startled for a moment, glances back and forth between the two. Dirk remains impassive. “If you want. I do have another suit. It’s not like this loss is a travesty.”

Kanaya nods. “Very well. I will get these back to you as soon as I can.” She spares another look at his half-bare form. “You should probably get changed. This was inappropriate strife-wear anyway.”

She hurries off back to her quarters and her sewing supplies.

\---

The repairs only take that afternoon. Kanaya delivers them to Dirk in person at his quarters. He answers the door with a half-sewn plush figure in one hand, thanks her for her work, and calmly shuts the door in her face. 

Kanaya spends the rest of the night wondering what happened. He doesn’t seem interested in her solicitations. But then why, if he can sew (as he plainly can), would he have taken her up on her offer of mending? Probably just cross-cultural miscommunication, she decides. He didn’t recognize the offer for what it really was and let her take care of a chore he wasn’t going to bother with himself.

But then, a few days later, he arrives at her quarters with a basket of ragged clothes. “I keep getting tears and cuts during strifing practice, now that Equius and I have finally calibrated the troll-bots to actually be a challenge. Would you mind?”

“Oh! Not at all.”

He hovers in her doorway as she pulls out her needles and things. “Did you-” she trails off, tries again, “Did you want to come in?”

“Got nothing better to do.”

He ambles in, a picture of calm ease, and looks around the room. Kanaya keeps a few small topiaries in her quarters, as well as a number of mannequins and, thanks to the other humans’ interference, a number of squashy beanbag chairs. Kanaya quickly grabs one and pulls it to sit across from the chair where she had arrayed her sewing basket. “Please, sit.”

He does, and they settle into a… not quite  _comfortable_ , but certainly companionable silence. Kanaya can’t help glancing up from her work, however. He just watches her needle, apparently impassive. “Was there… something you wanted to talk to me about?”

He shakes his head.

The silence continues for a while longer. Eventually, Kanaya can’t restrain her urge to break it. “You do very skilled work.”

“I know.”

“Yes…. I hope you realize your efforts are very much appreciated.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

She gives him a hard look, but the mask doesn’t shift even a little. “By all of us.”

“Okay.”

She decides to take a risk. “Including Dave.” If she hadn’t been watching so closely, she would have missed him tense up. “He watches you in much the same way you watch him, I think.”

“And what way would that be?”

“Mm… judicious appraisal? I think he wants to impress you as much as you want to impress him.”

“That certainly is a hypothesis you have.”

“I know how you feel!” she bursts out. “I felt the same… admiration, and fear, when I met Porrim. But he isn’t your Ancestor. Well, he is and he isn’t. But he is just another kid, like you, dealing with the same Dancestor confusion you are. Give yourself a break. You did your part to help us win the Game. You’re helping against the Condesce - just like your Ancestor did, in his time.”

Dirk is silent for a long time. Then he stands. “I’ll pick up my stuff tomorrow, if that’s enough time?” Kanaya’s heart sinks.

“Yes, that should be fine.”

Kanaya bends to her work, long practice keeping her fingers steady despite how much they want to shake. She hears the door of her quarters open. But then Dirk’s footsteps stop.

“...And thanks.”

“You know I don’t mind mending clothes.”

“Not for that.”

She looks up, but he’s already gone. Kanaya stares after him, then smiles.

Maybe this will work out, after all.

 


End file.
